100-year-old paper found in containers

A new hotel, Moana, is about to open on Kalakaaua Avenue on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.

Additionally, starting next year an American company from San Francisco will start installing a new wireless telegraphic system in Honolulu. This will mean that islanders will be able to send messages without waiting for mail boats. But it gets even better. Expectations are high among the populace that with these inventions coming on stream there just might be the possibility there will soon be flying machines such as planes for travelling by air.

Sounds like gibberish, or a time warp, doesn’t it? Especially in this era of jets, drones, laptops, tablets, smart phones and email. But these were happenings and topics of the day 112 years ago as discovered by Hanschell Inniss employee Hank Maynard while at his Fontabelle, St Michael workplace last week.

Maynard, with an eye for history, was working in a storeroom when he discovered a page from the Honolulu Tribune, dated Monday, April 1, 1901, among some imported containers.

“It was among some items that were to be dumped and when I saw the date on it and realised it was over 100 years I decided to read it and keep it. I plan to have it framed. It is not every day you come across something as old as that,” he told Barbados TODAY.

A subsequent bit of research has revealed that the famous Moana Hotel is still very much in business and is known as the First Lady of Waikiki. It is one of three buildings that comprise the Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort and Spa.

In 1905 the hotel was at the center of one of America’s legendary mysteries. Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University and former wife of California governor Leland Stanford, died in one of the rooms of strychnine poisoning. The identity of her killer still remains a mystery. But at least he or she has gone to their Maker.

The newspaper utilized 100 per cent vegetable-based non-toxic ink and was retailed on Honolulu for the princely sum of one cent. That price, however, doubled on the other islands in the chain to two cents. And what about advertisers? One of the main ads in the paper was for Cremo cigars, retailing at the giveaway price of five cents. Of course, today the islanders are no longer talking about Guglielmo Marconi and his radio telegraph system and they certainly have an abundance of flying machines. . . planes, that is. (WG)

Search in Archive

Select a MonthSelect a CategorySearch with Google

Barbados Today

Our mission is to keep you informed. Do you have news, know of an event or a personality deserving of coverage? Contact us today! Nothing or no one is too big or too small for us at Barbados Today to highlight. You can also take your own good quality photographs of community events and drop us a note with the details.